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Could you give us any more detail on how you think that is in any way achievable with present police resources?
Or how the hugely increased resources required to sit on random B roads all night, pulling over 3 land rovers an hour is going to be paid for?
And how do you think that Karen in her Range Rover, repeatedly getting pulled at a roadblock and breathalised, on her way back from Pilates is going to go down?
Uncle Jezza, I love you dearly, but as someone who lives in a city and doesn’t drive, I can see some potential flaws in your policy for policing the rural road network. 😉
Be public spirited and report the next person you see staggering out of the pub into their car. You might save their or someone else's life.
In my entire life, I’ve never seen the stumbling drunk get in the driver’s seat.
Obviously it happens.
The thing is, if it’s an after ride beer I can feel the impairment after one pint. Sat doing nothing, I don’t feel the effect of a few pints.
At my last Drug and Alcohol test the nurse said, in his words ‘you’d have to be stinking drunk to fail the breath test.’
Take that how you want.
Binners - you do it targetted. Its done in other countries. Pick a pub and an evening, set up half a mile down the road each way, breathalyze everyone who drives past.
As for how its paid for make it self funding by hugely increasing the penalties and every death saved is a million pounds saved, let alone the cost to the public purse of all the accidents and injuries
300 folk a year killed by drunk drivers. 300
My guess is Alpin and Cougar. Deflection... A well known technique in addicts.
Slow hand clap.
The scary thing about both your contributions there (and I'm not saying you are wrong) is a judgement that a change of behaviour would only be because people would be concerned about getting caught and the consequences, not because people have learnt to be more respectful citizens and appreciate their past behaviour wasn't.
I know - but there you go. It's not a defence, but I was young and inherently believed that I was immortal. Selfishly, the thought that I might kill or injure someone else was less important, to point of not even being thought about.
300 folk a year killed by drunk drivers. 300
And the other 1400 or so(if my googling is correct) I’d say, given I spend almost the whole working day on the road and the things I see, the resources could be helpful more broadly spent than camping outside pubs at closing, or 5pm when the trades have had a few.
Binners - you do it targetted. Its done in other countries. Pick a pub and an evening, set up half a mile down the road each way, breathalyze everyone who drives past
Right, so if you set up roadblocks at a half-mile radius from my local, then the manpower required to block every conceivable exit route would take half of the available manpower of GMP.
Plus, there’s the small matter of how Gary, on his way back from 5-a-side, Doris on her way back from choir practice are going to take to being stopped at a roadblock.
Does this country strike you as being receptive to mass roadblocks at the moment? Farage and the right wing press would go into full ‘police state’ mode.
And for what? Due to social media, everyone and their uncle will have been given the heads up about the roadblocks and change their behavior accordingly. So you get what?…. A couple of people over the limit who hadn’t read their WhatsApp messages? After comitting a shitload of police resources?
And everyone who’d been burgled or mugged that night will say “and the police were doing what?!!!. Sat on a load of B roads out in the sticks?!!”
Honestly… you’re living on another planet
There's a damn good reason the police don’t do that kind of thing.
Bigger fish to fry! And Barry in his Range Rover knows this, full well.
i don’t like it any more than you do, but I’d think that any chief constable looking at his stretched budgets isn’t going to be thinking ‘hmmmmmm….. nighttime roadblocks on rural B roads? That sounds like a winner”
Its well known that fear of getting caught is what stops folk from illegal behaviour - and the low risk of getting caught driving illegally is a significant factor in folk ignoring motoring law.
I got criticised once for not using enough paragraphs in a post. Can I just say binners, you don’t half hammer that return key! It could do with a bit of “flow”…
There's a damn good reason the police don’t do that kind of thing.
Yes - they are not allowed to!
Nice bit of english exceptionalism there Binners - this is done and works in many other countries.
Well, from this thread I take it that if police are to be involved in deterring drink driving, then they need to be very targeted in their limited efforts to catch people “at it”. This to me means they need more data as to who is drink driving, and where, so they can target hot spots and regular abusers. So, it all comes down to people like me giving up on our “not our problem” attitude to reporting drink driving, and to start reporting instead.
Nice bit of english exceptionalism there Binners - this is done and works in many other countries
Oh Christ on a bike! It’s ’English exceptionalism’ now is it?
Change the bloody record! Is it breathalysing roadblock central up in Inverness? Or do you reckon the farmers are driving their land rovers around over the limit there too
Hmmmmmmmm….. I wonder?
The example you gave was Australia, where the roads look like this.
Like I said, if you wanted to roadblock every road within a half mile radius of my local, blocking off every quick rat-run to avoid them, I reckon you’d have to close off 20 roads. How are you going to do that then? Do you honestly think that Barry in his Land Rover is driving down the main A road after his 5 pints?
Which is why I think roadblocks and a breath test of everyone is a damn good idea.
TJ your authoritarian fascist tendencies are shining through here. In addition to banning people from going on holiday and driving ICE cars now you want to set up mass roadblocks to catch a few old blokes who’ve drank three pints while having a chinwag with their mates down the pub. And we wonder why people are flocking to the Reform party in droves!?
Some of us saw this coming a while back Daz.
I fear that one day we will all be crushed under his iron fist
And we wonder why people are flocking to the Reform party in droves!?
I can think of a few reasons, but TJ's not in government.
So, it all comes down to people like me giving up on our “not our problem” attitude to reporting drink driving
I dare you to stand outside any pub in our valley and personally challenge anyone leaving who looks like they’re about to jump in their car to do the 10 minute drive up the hill. What do you think will happen?
We live in a small rural community, and word gets round quick. Honestly, you really don’t want to be known as the guy who calls the cops on casual drink drivers.
(and round here the cops all know and hang out with the main offenders in any case)
Which is why I think roadblocks and a breath test of everyone is a damn good idea.
If you drive regularly and follow the local roads policing units on Facebook it becomes pretty clear what they're up against. Delving into the comments or considering the number of times they seize cars with existing S59 notices is depressing. The ones you really want to catch and get off the roads they just don't care.
Ban them and they'll drive anyway. Can't get insurance, they'll drive without it. Seize their car, they'll get another.
Roadblocks won't solve it. Lots of resource for limited results. When they're banned they'll still drive to the pub because the odds of getting caught again are limited.
The UK has cultural challenges with booze and cars both individually and collectively and trends in cocaine use are pretty disturbing too, which might account for some of the other stuff we see on the roads.
I havent actually been in my local pub for years, precisely because it’s frequented by the kind of nobheads who have this attitude to drink driving.
You’ll be unsurprised to hear that they’re also a bunch of homophobic, sexist, racist, Reform-voting pricks, as I pointed out to them all one night, hence me not going in there any more.
The place I do choose to drink is a bit further, populated by much nicer people, and it’s a nice walk.
I thought they banned from the Rose and Crown in Ramsbottom after you had that meltdown that evening when you called all clientele there bigots?
I didn't think it was because you didn't like their "attitude to drink driving" as you are now apparently claiming.
So what is the homophobic, sexist, racist, Reform-voting pricks, attitude to drink driving....... don't do it?
Is it really that different to the establishment which you now grace with your presence?
Evening comrade Ernesto. Good to see you renewing your weird obsession with my local boozer
Just to refresh your memory… I essentially barred myself by telling the ‘regulars’ what I thought of them, in no uncertain terms. Namely that they were a bunch of racist, homophobic, sexist bigots.
You’ll be absolutely amazed to hear that those very same bunch of racist, homophobic, sexist bigots were the very same people who would then drive home after 5 pints, and usually a few whisky chasers.
Who’d have thunk it, eh?
So what’s your point, caller?
You really need to get over this bizarre obsession you have with a small local pub in Lancashire and the relationship I have with the regulars. It’s not healthy
Oh… and if you must continue this pointless bit of whataboutery, as you will no doubt feel compelled to do, we all generally refer to it as the Rose & Racist, rather than the Rose and Crown.
I reckon it’s about 7-8 years since I’ve been in there but not much changes in places like this, particularly not the ****s sat at the bar.
Unless the view from Croydon looks any different? Do feel free to enlighten me…
The only person I've ever known to be a habitual rural drink driver just drove while they were banned (and got caught again). Thankfully our paths stopped crossing 20 years ago
There are pubs we have ridden from where 5 & drive is probably the norm judging by location, intoxication levels and number of vehicles outside. Often 3 or 4 roads converging near the pub.
Eliminating drink driving would be fantastic but if there was a simple solution someone would have done it.
Evening comrade Ernesto. Good to see you renewing your weird obsession with my local boozer
Er, it was you who decided to bring up the subject of the spot of bother you had at the Rose and Crown and inform everyone how you no longer drink there because of it, not me! 😂
So what’s your point, caller?
That's exactly the same thought as I had, why did you bring up your experience in the Rose and Crown, how is that relevant to whether Alpin was right to grass up the tanked up geezer? Do you support Alpin's decision?
I do. And it is not based on anything to do with homophobia or racism, do you think it should be? Talking of weird obsessions. Do think the geezer should have been cut some slack if he was gay and voted remain?
You really need to get over this weird obsession with my local. It’s a bit odd comrade.
I live 50 yards away from it and you live in 200 miles away, yet you seem to spend an awful lot more time thinking about it than I do?
Do you think a trip up here would be beneficial? A sort of pilgrimage? Therapy?
Would that help? I think you need to face your demons, comrade
Sorry mate it was definitely you who brought the issue of your local pub and how because of a disagreement you no longer drink there, not me.
Anyway it's obviously a very touchy issue for you (I have no idea why you brought it up) so let's not dwell on it and get back to the subject matter.......do you support Alpin's decision to shop the tanked up geezer or not?
If you do what exactly are you arguing about?
Hang on a minute…. who is actually defending drink driving here?
Well, you're the one trotting out the "why aren't they out catching real criminals?" argument over all these supposed armed robberies occurring at chucking-out time in Sleepyville. If not "defending" it's hardly damning condemnation now, is it.
Putting the odd roadblock up on some random B road- if you had the resources, which you haven’t - will make absolutely sod all difference to the people to which this is hardwired behavior
... because they all know there's zero chance of getting caught. I said this earlier, the local plod is likely doing the same thing.
If you phoned up and said you’d just seen someone neck 3 bottles of wine and get in an artic, they still wouldn’t follow it up because they simply haven’t got the resources.
Presumably down to this Midsomer scale crime wave they're all off dealing with.
Look. If they picked one rural pub, stationed one cop car on one road nearby and started stopping people they'd just seen stagger to their cars, word that Range Rover Barry had just netted a 12 month ban and a conviction on his licence which stayed there for ten years, then that news would travel faster than "watch out lads, there's a copper on the B1234 tonight." Would it stop everyone, of course it wouldn't, it's ingrained behaviour as you say. But it might make a few think twice about them being untouchable.
What's the saying? "Ever go fishing? Ever catch all of the fish?"
I’m still failing to see how this is me condoning drink driving?
But obviously I don’t have the benefit of your righteous indignation. Maybe it looks different with the benefit of that?
I’m still failing to see how this is me condoning drink driving?
It's hard to tell, but you could clear the matter up by giving us your opinion, rather than engaging in whataboutery and diversion.
It’s the fact that you describe people’s attitudes to this as ‘righteous indignation’ implying that’s it’s just sanctimonious posturing. Presumably you would take the same stance if someone reported a punter for beating up their girlfriend in the bar. After all domestic violence is widespread & notoriously difficult to stop. You give the impression that drink driving isn’t really important. That isn’t condoning it , but it surely enables it to happen more frequently
.. I also can’t get over that one of our posters has apparently bought a home breath testing kit & carried out tests to see how many pints he can drink before going over the limit without even contemplating drinking & driving because he always walks to the pub. The things people do to liven up a quiet evening
It’s the fact that you describe people’s attitudes to this as ‘righteous indignation’ implying that’s it’s just sanctimonious posturing
That’s because it is. I’m not commenting on the morality of anything. I’m certainly not defending or condoning drink driving.
What I’m saying is that the armchair chief constables on here are indulging in the ‘Bobbie’s on the beat’ argument so beloved of the Daily Mail and its readership.
Lets funnel enormous amounts of scarce resources into an exercise that is ultimately totally futile, but visible, so we all get to pat each other on our backs and pretend we’re actually addressing the issue, despite it being utterly ineffective and completely pointless.
Keep the righteous indignation coming though. That generally tends to solve everything, doesn’t it?
Drink driving is utterly rife in the pubs around me in the countryside. I’d bet my house that over 50% of drivers leave the pub substantially over the limit. Farmers and what look like landowners are by far the worst culprits, but certainly not alone.
How many tractors, driven late at night get stopped by the police? Few? None? 8t of thing moving at 40mph piloted by someone who is at the very least tipsy.
The number of walls, kerbs and guard rails! around us which have clearly been crushed by a tractor wheel is astounding. Now, I’m not saying these are all drink drive related, but if you can accidentally do this whilst sober and just drive on, what kind of damage can you do whilst hammered!?
Where do the police stand on drug driving? Weed smoking is rife round here but drivers
Same here, BRS. When they drive past and I’m cycling, you can smell it pouring out of the car. I must get this at least 3 times per day in each direction of 30km commute.
Who gets up at 06:30 and thinks “I need breakfast and to be stoned” before I go to work IN MY CAR?!?
I’m not commenting on the morality of anything.
Why not? The moral dilemma of whether to report a drunk driver goes to the very heart of what is being discussed on this thread If you can comment about "righteous indignation" and "soiled petticoats" you could easily say whether or not you support Alpin's decision to phone the police.
Lets funnel enormous amounts of scarce resources into an exercise that is ultimately totally futile
What makes you claim that it funnels "enormously amounts" of scarce resources and that it is "totally futile"?
Keeping drunk drivers off our roads sounds like a very positive thing. My friend whose young son was killed by one certainly thinks so. And how much resources it uses depends on whether a crime has been committed or not. Presumably if no crime has been committed it involves no more than a few minutes of time of no more than a couple of coppers?
Lets funnel enormous amounts of scarce resources into an exercise that is ultimately totally futile, but visible, so we all get to pat each other on our backs and pretend we’re actually addressing the issue, despite it being utterly ineffective and completely pointless.
Funny how it works in other countries and has massively reduced drink driving 🙂 ( along with other measures)
300 people a year kiilled by drunk drivers
Roadblocks won't solve it. Lots of resource for limited results. When they're banned they'll still drive to the pub because the odds of getting caught again are limited.
so what is neede3d is making the odds of being caught much higher - by random breath tests of everyone leaving the pub
Well, between you all it looks like you’ve clearly got this all sorted. Never mind the phone calls, I’ll look forward to the mass roadblocks across all rural B roads then and the end of drink driving in the UK
Job jobbed!
Concentrated police preventative action does work to prevent drink driving (and would probably work with the more modern phenomenon of drugs).
In Derbyshire in the 80’s and 90’s we had high presence policing over the Christmas/New Year period, accompanied by a high level advertising campaign. It worked, the roads were clearly a lot quieter and some of the more persistent offenders were caught.
The campaign wasn’t a success for poor Manuel who had finished work in London on Christmas Eve and was travelling up to Leeds with presents for his Mum. Hit head on by a drunk squaddie travelling the wrong way on the M1, it took us quite a while to extricate him.
Drunk drivers, drug drivers, dangerous drivers (including those “making progress’ in wafty estate cars), I report them all.
There may not be an immediate response but after a few such reports, the picture builds, investigations follow.
an exercise that is ultimately totally futile
Very much disagree on this. If the resources were available, it would not only hugely cut down drink driving (anyone who's had a friend or relative killed by a drink driver will tell you this is a non-trivial issue) but also cut down a lot of collateral crimes that are usually hand-waved away as "victimless", like drug driving, unsafe vehicles, un-taxed / uninsured / disqualified drivers. And as any beat police officer will tell you, you often find out a lot of other stuff when you stop suspicious-looking cars...
We live in a small rural community, and word gets round quick. Honestly, you really don’t want to be known as the guy who calls the cops on casual drink drivers.
(and round here the cops all know and hang out with the main offenders in any case)
You live in police period drama Heartbeat? Does the local bobby* look like weirdly like an ex-Eastenders star?
*I think that's the correct term, not cop!
You live in police period drama Heartbeat?
Similar, but with more lesbians
I also can’t get over that one of our posters has apparently bought a home breath testing kit
eh? Where the f did I say I bought a breath testing machine? It was a NHS issued machine used by my mrs in her work as a drug and alcohol support worker. It was a bit of fun, nothing more FFS.
And as any beat police officer will tell you, you often find out a lot of other stuff when you stop suspicious-looking cars...
Again, without wanting to sound like a broken record, this is why cutting roads policing is counter-productive.
It was a NHS issued machine used by my mrs in her work as a drug and alcohol support worker. It was a bit of fun, nothing more FFS.
The only NHS testing kit my missus ever brought home was for Covid. That was nae fun. 😉